Black Lagoon: The Island of Lost Souls

4 - A Rough Bet

(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Any text surrounded by these (■) boxes indicates a flashback in the story. )

"Welcome, welcome, ladies and gentlemen! Tonight, you will be seeing fights like no other! Combat so brutal you can't help but smile at! And a large cash prize that's at stake... this is.. the Blood Pit!"

A rather large audience filled the basement of a nightclub situated deep in Roanapur, the building being one of many owned by Mr. Chang of the Chinese Triads. While the upper level served as the usual leisure spot, with a bar and plenty of women to see, the underground served a different, more nefarious purpose... at night, it was an adrenaline fueled fighting event holding the strongest fighters of all kinds and an even larger ring to house them. Money was made from these events through bets from spectators, or sometimes, no-holds barred death matches.

Dustin sat in one of the gloomy locker rooms, shirtless and only wearing some athletic shorts. A rather irritated look hung on his face as he looked up and stared at Revy, who looked down at him with a cheeky grin on her face.

"Damn, Dustin, you do look good without all of that baggy shit on you. How do you hold that shape? You eat your meat while it's still alive?"

"I work out instead of checking my diet full of Thai alcohol and smokes." Dustin said, sighing as he began to fasten some wraps onto his hands.

"Hey, could you fucking lighten up?" Revy said, walking over to him and crouching so they were at eye level. "I brought ya' here because there's a 15,000 dollar reward on the line if you beat the top fighter.. and after seeing you yesterday, I think you're gonna beat this asshole so much that he'll be on the floor, trying to get his balls out of his ass." She said, her grin widening even more.

"So you hauled me all the way out here, on a Saturday night, just to have me fight for the hell of it?" Dustin replied, the tone of his voice raised a bit as he stood up, still looking at the lady gunslinger.

"Jesus, alright, don't blow a damn gasket.. I'll split the cash if you win. Is that better, brit?"

"Good enough." Dustin said, cracking his neck as he began walking to the exit with her.

"You know when my fight will start?"

"Right after the one going down right now.. in  the meantime you can take a seat and watch the action... Woo, man, these fights can get real fucking bloody.. it's awesome." Revy said to him, as they walked out to where the main attraction was.. the ring.

Being responsible for the name of the attraction itself, the large hexagonal ring was the home of where all of the blood was spilled. Stained in blood and surrounded by metal fencing, the audience could watch from all sides as their desired fighters duked it out. Meanwhile, Dustin and Revy would take their desired seats near the front of the crowd as one of the opening fights had finished up. Farther back, Dutch sat in one of the empty seats, waiting for the next fight to begin. Looking over, he could see that Feng was joining him.

"Hey Feng," He said, looking up at her briefly before returning his gaze towards the ring, "I didn't think you'd show up to a spot like this."

"I don't have anything else to do at the apartment, so I had to find something to pass the time.." Feng replied, sitting down and looking down at the ring. She'd then hold up a file folder. "And by the way, I did some research on that Dustin guy, like you asked. And my, he's got an interesting story."

"Keep going.. I like some good surprises every once in a while." Dutch said, turning his full attention to Feng now.

"Well, me and Rock did some deep digging, and it seems that Dustin here has some combat experience.. he's a former SAS operative. Served overseas in the Middle East and Africa, and was active in Europe as well. He was discharged about 5 years ago.. I'm not sure why."